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ORICA-SCOTT head north and return to the Tour of Norway

The seventh edition of the Tour of Norway takes place next week with ORICA-SCOTT selecting a solid six-man squad for their first appearance in the challenging five-day stage race since 2015.

Covering close to 1,000kilometres the hilly race is ideal terrain for climbers and puncheurs alike and after another strong showing in the Ardennes classics and the recent Tour de Romandie Michael Albasini will be targeting further stage success here in Norway.

Young Australian climber and general classification hopeful Jack Haig returns to racing after finishing third in the youth classification at the Tour de Romandie and will be joined by fellow Australians Simon Gerrans and Mitch Docker.

“This year the Tour of Norway provides some very interesting and challenging stages,” explained sport director Matt Wilson. “The stage profiles suggest that the parcours will definitely favour the more aggressive teams and we are certainly looking forward to getting down to some tough racing.”

“We believe that we have a solid squad with versatile options for this race. Throughout the season so far the team has repeatedly shown that we are capable of achieving good results on all kinds of terrain and our approach for this race will be a positive one.”

German lead out specialist and Giro d’Italia stage winner Roger Kluge completes the line up alongside 22-year-old Australian all rounder Robert Power.

“It wont be an easy race,” continued Wilson. “Just about every stage concludes with hard finishing circuits, not dissimilar to the Ardennes classics and I’m sure that we will see some exciting racing with spectacular scenery as a backdrop.”

“Both Jack and Michael performed really well at the Tour de Romandie and we’ll be looking for more of the same here, we have great options for the different ways in which the stages may play out and Simon Gerrans is in great shape after a good block of Spring racing.”

The Tour of Norway starts on Wednesday and will start in the southeast of the Scandinavian country and move steadily northwards before turning back south to conclude in the capital city of Oslo.